Special Report

COVID-19: This is the Most Dangerous County in the Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA Metro Area

Samuel Stebbins

Published: April 9, 2021 3:30 am

Though vaccine distribution is well underway across the United States, the novel coronavirus continues to spread through the population. To date, there have been 30,475,900 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the Des Moines-West Des Moines metropolitan area, located in Iowa, a total of 73,790 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 11,635 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 9,315 cases per 100,000 people.

The higher than average per capita COVID-19 infection rate across Des Moines-West Des Moines is being driven disproportionately by one area in particular.

The broader Des Moines metro area comprises five counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Dallas County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 10,744 infections in Dallas County, or 12,790 for every 100,000 people.

A relatively high infection rate does not necessarily mean COVID-19 related fatalities per capita are higher in Dallas County than they are across all of the Des Moines area, however. There have been a total of 114 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Dallas County, compared to 129 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Des Moines-West Des Moines metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of April 7, 2021.

These are all the counties in Iowa where COVID-19 is slowing (and where it’s still getting worse).